by Hee Jung Lee on 2021-05-07T12:21:00-04:00 | 0 Comments
LIBRARY NEWSLETTER
Special Edition
Issue 2 ‖ May, 2021
Dear Readers,
Happy Spring!
April was a busy month at the Library, with more than 250 feet of materials pulled and deaccessioned. Library staff spent time in the stacks, searching and locating items both in the Main Library and various curatorial department libraries to dedupe the collection. Also, we are surveying the availability of items in digital formats in an effort to provide seamless services across physical and electronic resources.
As we continue our journey to transform the library collection and its services, we need the community's feedback and engagement. Please stay tuned for updates on our collection assessment in coming months.
Sincerely,
Hee Jung Lee, Head Librarian,
and Library Staff
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
The William Morris Hunt Memorial Library's Special Collections consists of more than a thousand items. It includes a wide variety of formats ranging from pamphlets, books, and auction catalogs to massive folios, representing the breadth of the Museum’s encyclopedic collection.
The items housed in the Special Collections have been collected or donated to the Library over time and reflect the changing art world in Boston and beyond. Also included are artists' books that the library has accumulated, along with items of institutional significance, such as accession ledgers and rare MFA catalogs.
Pictured above is the most recent addition to the Special Collections, entitled A Booke of Sundry Draughtes(1848), found during our survey of the collection. It was a donation of William Sturgis Bigelow, as a part of approximately 300 other items that arrived at the library after his death in 1926. A faithful facsimile of the rare 1615 original, this white vellum cover book is a time capsule of English ornamental patterns compiled by contemporary tradesman Walter Geddes. This heavily illustrated volume provides an invaluable glimpse into pattern designs in the early 17th century.
LIBRARY NEWS
THE FIRST TWO HUNDRED FEET
As announced in last month's newsletter, items have been withdrawn from the library’s collection. Three types of materials are primary targets in this phase of our collection evaluation: periodicals with alternate access, duplicative titles, and outdated reference materials. Also under scrutiny are gift serials, typically yearbooks, annual reports, and bulletins from other institutions, most of which bear little direct relevance to the MFA object collection. In recent years, these publications have moved to online formats, making these materials obsolete. These items were reviewed based on their contents and use, physically removed, thoroughly processed in catalogs, and disposed of according to our arrangement with vendors, partnering institutions, or recycling policy.
Despite the importance of “weeding” in the life cycle of the library collection, deselection is one of the most difficult responsibilities for librarians. Apart from the impracticalities of weeding, such as staffing and time, the irrevocable nature of the decisions weighs heavy on the minds of the stakeholders including the librarians.
A study suggests that the negative emotions associated with weeding include "anxiety," "anger," and "sadness" (Agee, 2017); meanwhile, their positive counterparts are identified as "respect," "shared," "thoughtfulness," and "opportunity." Much of the literature on deselection unequivocally report that a robust policy and transparent communication help reduce such psychological barriers on patrons and librarians alike, leading to the success of such projects.
With this wisdom in mind, we reviewed our collection development policy prior to launching the collection analysis. By refining the existing collection development policy, we prioritized what to focus on from the collection assessment. In contrast, a separate weeding policy guides us on what to deselect to achieve a collection that best serves the MFA community.
For more information about our collection development policy, please click the "Read More" button below.
Reference:
Agee, A. (2017). Faculty Response to Deselection in Academic Libraries: A Psycholinguistic Analysis, Collection Management 42:2, 59-75.
Any Questions?
Please connect with Head Librarian, Hee Jung Lee at hlee@mfa.org with any questions or thoughts.
Some parts of the library are currently unavailable due to safety concerns. Please inquire the Library about the availability of the materials in these closed stacks.
Please check out our newly revamped website. The library hopes to use this page as the main access point. The MFA users can request items using Google Forms from our website without VPN access.
We will continue to offer interlibrary loans, research appointments, and delivery services.
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